Selling LTC: Your Vantage Point is Your Opportunity

Many of your clients believe that Medicare and Medicaid will cover their long-term care needs. However, relying on these government run programs will most likely leave your clients and prospects without the level of care they need or expect. If your clients eventually need help with activities of daily living like eating, bathing, getting dressed, getting around or personal hygiene, Medicare or Medicaid won’t cover those services. Only private long-term care insurance will help them pay for that. 

It’s important for you to learn what your clients know about long-term care and if they’ve thought about how they would want to be cared for if the need arose. Recent data shows that clients want to talk about long-term care with their families, but they tend to fall short. A recent Lincoln study found 97% of Americans surveyed agreed that families should be talking about long-term care before it’s needed. However, for reasons that range from misinformation to individual feelings toward caregiving, many fail to initiate the conversation. Without this knowledge, it’s almost impossible for you to help your clients plan properly. 

You have the vantage point to be a catalyst for leading the long-term care conversation.

November is Long-Term Care Insurance Awareness Month, and the prefect time to facilitate the long-term care discussion. According to the 2021 Insurance Barometer Study conducted by Life Happens and LIMRA, the top financial concern for 25% of Baby Boomers is paying for long-term care services if they can’t take care of themselves, and more than a quarter of Millennials want to talk to an advisor about long-term care insurance. Nevertheless, only 18% of people own some type of long-term care insurance, and the market for long-term care coverage continues to grow as the population of older consumers increases… This is your opportunity!

You don’t have to be a long-term care insurance expert because MVP Financial can help. Contact a representative today and check out our long-term care resources to assist you with getting the conversation started. 

Who Couldn't Use Extra Money in Time of Need?

We buy life insurance to provide financial security for our loved ones in the event of our death. With improvements in medicine, however, the recovery rate for once fatal conditions like cancer, heart attack, and stroke have improved dramatically. So what happens to that security if we don't die from a critical illness? 

Many people are not prepared for the financial fallout of a critical illness. Health insurance doesn't cover everything and higher deductibles and general healthcare costs are adding stress to people’s lives and budgets. Help your clients and prospects fill the financial gap with critical illness insurance. Offer them more than money... Give them options, choices, and control when they feel they have none.

The Critical Illness sales market is predicted to grow 22%* annually. If you are interested in double-digit sales growth, you should be looking at adding critical illness insurance to your portfolio. 

Critical Illness is available as an independent policy or can be added to some life insurance policies as a living benefit rider. Talk to your MVP representative about easing financial worries for your clients by offering them critical illness coverage today. 

*“2018 U.S. Critical Illness Insurance Market Study Shows Continued Strong Growth.” Gen Re, Sept. 11, 2018

Do All the Clients You Serve Have Life Insurance?

If there is one thing we’ve learned over time, it’s that when it comes to security and protection, life insurance is very important. The pandemic undeniably shifted the mindset of many and re-shaped how people view the future and their financial security. Therefore, more of your clients and prospects are realizing the importance of life insurance.  

According to research, 50% of your clients don't have any life insurance or they don't have the amount they truly need to protect. September’s Life Insurance Awareness Month (LIAM) is a great opportunity to get the word out, start a life insurance conversation with clients and prospects, and get families and businesses the life insurance coverage they need.

Don't settle for just one carrier or product that may not serve the needs of your clients. Talk to an MVP Financial representative for real-life solutions from an A+ list of carriers with affordable and diverse life insurance products.

Big Opportunities in Small Business

Small business owners face many struggles including balancing their work and personal life, hiring the right people, and making strategic plans. Plus, most are focused on bouncing back from last year and looking for ways to grow and plan for the future. The pandemic taught this vast market the importance of being prepared to better handle the next crisis in the face of life’s uncertainties. 

When it comes to the success of a business, their employees most likely have a huge impact. Having the right benefits in place for key employees can make an important difference in their business’ success.  Owners also should pay attention to how they might entice key employees to stay and help grow the business.

You can help your small business owner clients protect their business and keep their MVPs. Talk to them about using life and disability insurance to offer competitive benefits that will keep and attract top talent, reward performance-based incentives for motivation to achieve business goals and encourage loyalty with long-term retirement options.

A business valuation becomes important in the event of an owner’s disability or death.  Nevertheless, many small business owners do not know the value of their company. From an insurance-planning perspective, the value of a business is also an integral part of succession planning, estate equalization and even estate-tax planning. To help you assist your business-owner clients in determining the value of their businesses, MVP Financial has free resources to assist. 

Consider a Permanent Solution

While term insurance is extremely popular and economical, it is only temporary. Nevertheless, no one can truly predict what the future holds and everyone's financial story is different; term insurance alone might not be the best solution. There are good reasons to consider a permanent type of life insurance - including the potential for lifetime coverage. 

Your clients and prospects are the youngest and healthiest they will ever be today, and leveraging that now can pay off later. Help your clients keep their financial independence. Don't put them in the difficult situation of still needing life insurance coverage after the level term (or conversion) period expires and not being young enough or healthy enough to afford it. 

Let's use the example of Principal Financial's latest announcement to exit the individual life insurance market by end of Q3 this year... Most term policies have a guarantee of conversion, but there is no guarantee of what permanent products will be available to convert to. As carrier's pull out of the market, the permanent product availability becomes narrowed and potentially expensive. 

Help your clients understand the important features of a permanent life insurance policy. While permanent life insurance may be more expensive compared to term life insurance, keep their best interest on point. Discuss their options to determine the best balance of life insurance coverage for their unique situation.

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Annuities Can Be Powerful Solutions for Clients

Our industry is promoting National Annuity Awareness Month this June, consequently it is the perfect time to educate your clients on the benefits of annuities and the guaranteed lifetime income they can provide.  As the pandemic begins to subside, Americans will likely shift their focus from short-term survival to longevity, making the protection offered by annuities more important than ever.

Longevity includes retirement planning. Only 27% of working Americans feel confident in having enough money to live comfortably throughout their retirement. Also, a whopping 41% of workers in America have saved less than $50,000 for retirement. This is a huge opportunity!

Thanks to the SECURE Act legislation passed in December, 2019, which removed barriers in retirement planning, annuities are riding a wave of positivity. A traditional fixed income investment like money markets and CD's have declined sharply over the years, making it difficult for clients who are looking for profit to generate dependable income to maintain their lifestyles in retirement.

A well-balanced retirement portfolio may include a combination of conservative, moderate and aggressive investments. Stocks and bonds offer strong return opportunities, but they lack income and protection guarantees plus are subject to higher risks than traditional fixed income investments.

To help your clients achieve their retirement goals, it’s important to build a strong savings foundation that can help overcome low interest rates and increasing market volatility. Annuities can add certainty to your clients’ retirement savings groundwork.

Assist your clients in overcoming potential retirement planning challenges. Offer them more growth and protection to accumulate more assets for retirement by offering annuities. Start the conversation today with help from these resources. 

DIAM: If You Are Not Offering, You Should

It doesn't matter what your primary insurance sales consist of, your clients depend on their income to pay their bills (which includes premium payments) and maintain a lifestyle. Help them keep their financial life in balance with disability income insurance. If helping your clients isn't enough incentive, advisors who offer disability insurance to their existing clients earn 30% more income than advisors who do not.

May is Disability Insurance Awareness Month (DIAM), and it's the perfect reminder that disability insurance is often an overlooked part of your clients’ financial plan. If you are not currently offering it, you should be. Not only for the reason that it will increase your income, but also because most working Americans couldn’t last a month without their paycheck; maybe six months if they have savings socked away. Nevertheless, the average length of a disability is 34.6 months, any savings they have isn't going to last long. Which is probably why medical issues are the number one reason cited for bankruptcy filings in the US as 90% of disabilities are due to illness not accidents.

If the pandemic has taught us anything, it’s that our income is extremely important. We pay for insurance to cover many things: Our cars, pets, cell phones, vacations…So why are we reluctant to insure our most important asset that pays those premiums? 

As 67% of them do not even have long-term disability insurance through work, ask your clients what they would do if they lost their income because of an illness or injury. Get this DI Starter Kit to help begin the conversation. 

"But, You Said..."

We have all been there with a life insurance applicant. We want to believe that because our client looks healthy (and says they are), they will definitely qualify for the Preferred Best underwriting classification. So, we quote it. We compare all of the premiums, and the client chooses to go with the least expensive. We submit the application without giving it another thought.

Until... the underwriting process uncovers something that is not a big deal in day to day living but is a concern from a mortality perspective.

So, now your client has lost confidence in the process, and is upset because of the additional underwriting that takes additional time. Plus, the premium is now higher than expected!

Less than 10% of life insurance applicants qualify for the best classification, and we can help you work smarter by quoting the right classification the first time. We have a questionnaire that you can use at the front-end of the sale with your clients and prospects to avoid unrealistic hopes and limit the resulted disappointment. 

Use our Underwriting Criteria Questionnaire to quote the right classification the first time without setting unrealistic expectations for the underwriting outcome.

What Are You Doing for Her?

March is Women’s History Month, and there is no question that women have made significant contributions to our history. They also tend to care for everyone else by managing tasks for the people they love. Yet, far too often, they don’t plan ahead for their own financial security. 

This could be because 75% of women feel advisors don't consider their best interest and are out of touch with their fiscal concerns. Most women believe advisors are too focused on selling rather than educating and they prefer a trustworthy resource whose first objective is to educate them.

So, what about a woman’s insurance and retirement needs? Women face unique challenges when it comes to planning for their retirement because it usually has to last longer. They are currently underserved in the financial services industry, many outlive men, and they control $14 trillion of personal wealth in the U.S. This is a huge opportunity for your business!

For the month of  March, make it your goal to help your female clients protect their families, safeguard retirement and make financial decisions with confidence.  Let them count on you as their trustworthy resource. Be the change. Lead with education and the sale will follow.

Get on Board the LOVE Train

A Greek word for selfless, sacrificial, unconditional love is Agape (pronounced uh-GAH-pay). The kind of love a parent has for a child. There is no question that our country could use more love these days, and February is the perfect month to perform some simple acts of love with your clients. 

Opportunity 
According to LIMRA research, one benefit that has come out of the pandemic is more Americans are increasingly aware of their need for life insurance. 60 million US households have little to no life insurance coverage and nearly 30% of survey respondents say they will likely purchase a policy in the next year. We are hopeful they will follow through and get the coverage they need to protect their families, however they may need a little push from their friendly insurance advisor.

Agape 
People want to protect their loved ones, and one of the best ways to do that financially is with life insurance. Life Happens created and coordinates the Insure Your Love campaign because the basic motivation behind the purchase of life insurance is love. Many MVP carriers participate in the industrywide awareness campaign. So, get on board the industry LOVE train by promoting the importance and power of proper insurance planning.

Is the Stink of 2020 Still Hanging in Your Business Air?

Congratulations! You've already made it to the 2nd week of 2021, and you may still sense some stink from 2020 hanging in the air of your business. Don't go "nose-blind" to the digital education gained this past year to keep your business working. 

Clients may not be ready for in-person meetings yet, so the virtual business lessons learned will continue to be an important part of your sales process now and into the foreseeable future. We are here to assist you through that future. Our sales and technology resources are designed for today's digital world and help make the process easier for everyone involved. 

Easily Expand Your Business
Selling another product to an existing client that meets their additional needs takes less time and effort than the initial sale. Selling to those clients goes a long way in boosting referrals, improving client retention, and increasing your sales. 

And Don’t forget about policy reviews… In addition to ensuring that their life insurance still protects their current needs; it's a great way to get a conversation going to uncover the additional needs of existing clients. 

Keep On Learning
"In times of change, learners inherit the earth, while the learned find themselves beautifully equipped to deal with a world that no longer exists." -Eric Hoffer, Philosopher

The resources you need to keep learning and your business working are available 24/7. Check out our website for webinars, sales kits, quoting tools and more: www.mvp4me.com. Or reach out via phone or email.